"Kiwi Food", a Caleb Jack film

Just wanted to say a huge thank you to all 143 of you, from 19 countries across 4 continents! I feel super blessed that I have a community of people around me who would support my creative endeavours in such a way. 

Now comes the fun part, I get to make a movie! I am slowly building up my team and in the spirit of keeping you involved, if you or anyone you know would be interested in partaking in production, let me know! Maybe we can make something great together.

Hope to bring you more exciting news and a great story to your screen!

A belated 50% milestone post, I've been busy! 

But trust that once this crowdfunding is over I can forgo the crowdfunding drive and Instagram posts then will be reaching you guys with update via email.

I've been asked enough times, "so is this a documentary?", "will you need actors for the film?", to be made apparent to me that I haven't communicated well what this film ACTUALLY is.

Though the fact that people have still trusted my vision and chosen to support me makes me feel very blessed.

However, I wanted to use this post to give a comprehensive explanation of "Kiwi Food".

The title derives from an experience I had many times overseas. 

What we don't realise in New Zealand, is that most people's lives around the world are informed by tradition and cultural heritage. 

But for most of us in this country, notable Pākehā, we are removed from any sense of this.

In my situation, I came to understand this through food. 

People I'd meet overseas would cook these ancient recipes they had inherited and then ask me, "so what is traditional New Zealand food?".

It was a question I could never quite answer and it made me self reflect and think, "I don't know what any of my cultural inheritance is!?".

I had drifted from the language my grandparents would speak, my inherited spirituality and any expression of cultural identity through clothes, celebrations or food.

And I don't have a drop of indigenous blood in my body, so where does that leave me?

Instead, without knowing it, I had adopted a homogenised, American-ised, non-descript culture based on holidays that were invented by corporations.

And in the years past, I had flip flopped between Aotearoa and Europe, never quite understanding which side I belonged on. 

But it was coming to these realisations on my last endeavour that made me click and this time, I returned with a film script that explored these ideas.

So the film IS a narrative, it follows Phileas, who living in New Zealand in the near future grapples with these ideas that most Kiwis face.

Phileas leaves New Zealand, on board the Global Rail System, an international rail network that connects the world.

He goes on a myriad of adventures in many unknown places around the world, surrounded by interesting people.

This is where the "World's First Visual Circumnavigation" comes in.

I have photographed every single square kilometre on a journey around the world, when this is sped up, an audience can experience what it looks like to go circumnavigate the Earth.

It is important to me, when creating something, that I feel like I am bringing something new to the table, stretching the potential of the art form.

The audience will see all the cities, cultures and landscapes melt by, with the time lapse interlaced through the film, just as Phileas does onboard the train.

Phileas, like myself, eventually comes to a point where he realises his yearning for his turangawaewae, his "place of belonging" but where is that?

This film is about grasping with your own identity, your first experience away from home and reevaluating the life you want to live through what you learned.

I hope this sheds some more light on the project, I have so much to say but I can't give it all away! I'm excited to have you involved in the project and grateful for your support.

Kia ora! I'm super pumped to have made it this far with the crowdfunding, it's a pretty daunting process to be honest but it means a lot to have so many early contributors.

In the past few days since beginning the funding drive, we have completed our first teaser poster. I'm interested to hear what you think of it and what it communicates about the film to you!

I'm still trawling through all the images from the "World's First Visual Circumnavigation", there's about 40'000 and I'm 3/4 through. Here's a funny one I found yesterday, located in rural Estonia (look at the graffiti on the door).

A lot of people have asked me what "Kiwi Food" means and it's a great question! Being asked overseas, "what is a traditional New Zealand dish", always encapsulated my cultural anxieties. I could never answer the question and it made me reflect I don’t really understand what my cultural inheritance is. So I tried to live in my ancestral country but I didn’t feel Dutch, so what side of the globe did I belong on? These are the themes explored in the film.

For those committed enough to engage on the Boosted page, I want to reward your loyalty with a little sneak peak of the Kiwi Food script:

Thanks for reading and if you're intending to contribute but just waiting around (to be honest I do that all the time), please contribute now! It'll put me a lot more at ease and get the gears of this film moving. I'm excited to share more with you!

Thanks so much for your support :^)